Join the discussion and see what Lupe has to say about the book 'John Brown' by W.E.B. DuBois. Click HERE to join the chat and if you have a question/comment about the book, you can send a tweet to Lupe with the hashtag #JohnBrown!

UPDATE: The next book to read is "Twelve Steps Toward Political Revelation" by Walter Mosley

7 comments:

When answering the question about slavery in islam Lupe made a mistake about Bilal being originally enslaved by muslims before being freed by the Prophet (peace be upon him)..

Bilal was not enslaved by the muslims to begin with, rather freed by them after the muslims had heard about his poor treatment as a slave. He later than willingly became a muslim and one of the closest companions of the Prophet pbuh) and the first to make the call to prayer.

Slavery is only permissible in strict circumstances of war. In this instance a prisoner of war can be take as a slave only when the war was waged against the muslims and fought defensively.

Even then, these slaves have rights over their masters and are not supposed to be tortured/harmed (islam strictly prohibits tourture). It's also important to note, that thee freeing of slaves is encouraged over the owning of them.

All of this, of course, must be examined in the context of the historical period in which these rulings came down.

(I'm in no way condoning/justifying slavery of any form...rather putting some of Lupe's comments into theological perspective for those who were wondering and hopefully clearing up any misconception...I still have more research to do on this issue).

@ first anon:I was kind of confused about that as well. And he said something about the Quran's allowance of slavery being "funky" or something. But like the person above me said, there's a lot to take into consideration.

Unfortunately, slavery was a universal institution that was practiced by everyone way before it was based on race. The way Islam tackled that issue was by prohibiting most of slavery and legalizing certain parts of it (POWs), which would eventually lead to the complete elimination of it.

Islam never did endorse the slavery. Bilal heard about Islam and decided to become Muslim while he was a slave. But his master Umayyah ibn Khalaf who wasn't Muslim,found that out so Bilal was tortured many ways including laying down on hot coal, but he didn't give up his faith. Later he would be taken on hottest time of day on the desert and thrown on back and on his chest put huge rock so he could barely move,speak or breath. Umayyah said he would let him, if he would give up his faith, but only words Bilal said were :"Ehad,Ehad" (means one,this way he wanted to say that theres only one God). Ebu-Bekr, father in law of Mohammed saw this and he decided to rebel against it and then Umayyah ibn Khalaf said mockingly that he was the one who got him in that situation and that he should save him. Ebu-Bekr asked: Do you kill the man, because he says that Allah is his master? Then he shouted at Umayyah to take more then he is worth and set him free. Umayyah then accepted his offer , because it was more profitable for him to sell him than kill him. He even said he would sell him for any price except one ounce of gold and to that Ebu-Bekr responded that he would buy him for any price, except if he would ask over 100 ounce of gold. After that,Ebu-Bekr took Bilal ibn Rabah al-Habashi to his home,where he took care of him,cured him and afterwards freed him completely.Bilal was also 1st muezzin(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muezzin).